A southern Minnesota man has been given a two-year sentence for stealing nearly $480,000 in commissions owed to fellow travel agents and then using the money to pay for his own globe-trotting, electronics, restaurant bills and ticketed entertainment.
Matthew H. Schumacher, 46, of Waseca was sentenced Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Minneapolis after pleading guilty to wire fraud in connection with the scheme he carried out for nearly 2 ½ years until January 2019 as owner-operator of Travel Troops and Vacation Agent Nation.
Along with his prison time, Schumacher was ordered by Judge Ann Montgomery to make restitution of $479,632.45. Upon his release from prison, he will be under court supervision for three more years.
Most travel agents are independently employed. However, in order to book flights, they require credentials, and those can cost upward of $100,000. So most independent agents hire a host agent, such as Schumacher, who holds the credentials and collects commissions from airlines, resorts and cruise companies.
"When Schumacher launched Travel Troops," the U.S. Attorney's Office wrote in a filing before sentencing that pushed for a prison term of two years and three months, "his marketing and sales pitch leaned heavily on the values he professed to learn as [a] soldier for six years in the United States Army, even going so far as to use a logo emblazoned with dog tags and the motto, 'No Agent Left Behind' in Army green coloring."
However, the filing continued, "Schumacher's purported military record as a six-year U.S. Army veteran was false, despite the promotional claims to the contrary."
In a written response, the defense sought a sentence of probation and no prison time.
"If I could rewind to 2015 to 2017 and do everything over, I would have done it differently. I would have been honest about the job, military service and not have been a coward when my business was failing," read a statement from Schumacher that the defense included in its filing.
